Birding lens on a budget?

Rankinia wrote in post #16170925
Go a used 400/5.6 or 100-400 and if its not what you want sell it for the exact same price.If it is what you wanted you didnt waste money buying and selling lesser quality products.

Quoted emphasis mine.
Gotta agree with that! I've bought a few L-lenses used. You can almost always sell them for what you paid, give or take a few bucks. I actually shot my 135L for about 2 years. I made about $30 on it when I sold it, IIRC.

tkbslc wrote in post #16170753
I know more zoom is always better for birds, but I always find it interesting that the forum seems to recommend a 400-500mm for birding whether the person asking was shooting FF or crop.

This is probably because the focal lengths you really need (normally) for excellent bird photography are in the 600mm - 800mm range, and even beyond (many serious birders regularly use a 1.4x along with their 600mm or 800mm lens). Whether you're on a crop or full frame, 400-500mm is still a bit short. Why ask "crop or full frame?" when the answer would be the same either way?

Anyway, the OP did tell us he was on a crop, right in the first post:

lobby wrote in post #16170478
I'm shooting with a 7D, so I have the 1.6 crop factor to my advantage.

So we already knew what format he/she is shooting . . . hence, no need to ask.

OP, my recommendation is also for a 400mm f5.6. I believe it will give you the best feather detail for the money, unless you are able to work setups where you can get extremely close and shoot them full frame at 200mm. I do recognize it is slightly over your stated price of $800, but then again you did say that you didn't have a definite "max value".

h14nha wrote in post #16170927
Look for an older Sigma 300/2.8 Great IQ, fast and a cheap way to 420mm and 600mm with 1.4 and 2x TC's.

Please no. 400mm f5.6 is so much better in AF and picture quality. I will take 400mm f5.6 over canon 300mm f2.8 IS I with 2xTC. And sigma prime is no way near canon primes.

tkbslc wrote in post #16170753
I know more zoom is always better for birds, but I always find it interesting that the forum seems to recommend a 400-500mm for birding whether the person asking was shooting FF or crop.

A 55-250 is 400mm equivalent on a 7D and either the Canon or Tamron 70-300mm IS/VC models are 480mm equivalent. Both of those replicate huge expensive FF setups to some degree.

I think that people are recommending 400-500mm because the OP is on a tight budget and can't afford a 500mm or longer. Even that length is frequently too short when birding, unless shooting particularly large birds close up, even on a crop body.

Crop factor is irrelevant with bird photography, the vast majority of the time, as you are usually going to end up cropping further anyway, to get the bird to fill the frame better. So, by the time you have cropped to your desired framing, you are using the exact same area of sensor whether you have a crop or FF body, so the "crop factor" is the same, the only difference is how much you threw away. You do still usually get more reach with a crop, though due to the higher pixel density giving more pixels on target, but how much of a difference depends on which bodies you are comparing. An old cropper against a modern high res FF will have very little advantage, if any.

Getting a 250mm (ish) lens "because it's 400mm equivalent on a FF" is not a good idea. I shoot birds around my feeder station from around 10 feet away, with a FF at 420mm, and I still have waste area to crop away with finch size birds. If I use my cropper I have less to crop away but usually still crop with the small stuff, although woodpeckers fill the frame nicely. But that is shooting at close range, with 420mm on a crop, and a great deal of the time I am shooting in less ideal conditions and birds can be significantly further away, even cranking up to 600mm I am often not getting enough reach even on my crop. Although the OPs 7D will have more reach than my 40D or 5D3, I would say 400mm is still the minimum for a birding lens.

You can do bird photography with any lens, I've got bird shots taken at 24mm on FF, but the shorter it is the more often it won't be long enough, and there will be many occasions that you don't have enough reach, whatever lens you have, even 800mm with TCs on the back of it.

Not a "birder" by any means but 250mm on a crop cam is still pretty darn far away. You will be cropping heavily.

smyke wrote in post #16171442
Not a "birder" by any means but 250mm on a crop cam is still pretty darn far away. You will be cropping heavily.

But you are going to have to get close, regardless. Take a good sized bird that is about a foot tall. To fill the frame with said bird on a 1.6x crop camera, you are looking at:

33' away with a 500mm
28' away with a 400mm
20' away with a 300mm
17' with a 250mm

So comparing 300mm and 400mm, we are only talking 8', or 3 steps closer. A little stealth saves a lot of money and weight. 500mm vs 250mm is obviously double.

Now if you compare a small bird, we might be cutting these numbers in thirds. Then it is 9 vs 7 feet for 400 and 300mm.

Taylor, shoot a bird sometime and then say 300 vs 400mm doesnt matter.

I still say 400mm f5.6 for min. This still gives you the option to add 1.4x TC (reporting or non reporting) and AF is still good for still birds.

Here is small bird almost at MFD of the 500mm f4 on 1.6x crop. And it is only 1600x1200 crop, had to throw away the rest. You need 600mm for smaller birds if not the 800mm f5.6.

I didn't say it doesn't matter. But we were looking for budget options. Moving only a few feet closer saves a ton of money.

tkbslc wrote in post #16171712
I didn't say it doesn't matter. But we were looking for budget options. Moving only a few feet closer saves a ton of money.

Yes, moving closer is great but often not practical. It works well if you can shoot from a fixed position and have something to get the birds close to that position, but in many situations that is not possible.

I have just measured from a popularly used branch next to my feeding station, to where the end of the lens will typically be when I am shooting. It is 11 feet away, so getting on for 13 feet at the sensor. Using 420mm and a crop body I am still cropping into my shots to get the birds larger in the frame and if the birds use another perch and do something interesting, such as feeding young, then I may want to crop more if it is further away.

Now, give me a shorter lens and I would need to be able to get closer than, but it isn't easy to shoot birds from 8-9 feet away on a regular basis, most you will come across will be further away and no amount of stealth will get you within 8-9 feet (and remember that can still involve some cropping with small birds).

Getting closer has other problems too, as even at that distance I am having to stop down significantly to get the whole bird in focus. Often that can involve having to choose between a shutter speed that may not be high enough to stop all motion blur on the bird, or a high ISO which may start to show noise. Getting even closer would involve more DOF issues. According to Dofmaster, Focusing at 13 feet (on a crop body), I am getting 1.75 inches of DOF at f/16, so less than an inch behind my focus point (which will be on the eye) and tails may be significantly OOF.

Moving closer is always going to be of benefit, of course it is, but how close can you get to an eagle, or hawk, that is flying past 150 feet away? Or the peregrine stooping at a pigeon? Even with long lenses on a crop body, such shots are often cropped significantly in PP to remove large areas of empty sky.

Of course you can get good bird shots with a shorter lens, and some stealthy techniques, but there will always be many, many missed shots because you just don't have the reach in those situations.

Another vote for 400/5.6. Another option might be a Canon 300/4 non-IS.

It's going to be tough to stay under 800, but for under $1000, I don't think anybody has mentioned the Tamron 200-500. A friend of mine has one and really likes it, though I haven't tried it.

There are two ways to go about it.

Step One: buy a cheap 55-250. Use it for a month or two, get frustrated, sell it at a loss.
Step Two: buy a slightly better/longer lens. Use it for a month or two, get frustrated, sell it at a loss.
Step Three: buy a slightly better/longer lens. Use it for a month or two, get frustrated, sell it at a loss.
Step Four: buy a 400mm f/5.6 or 100-400L

or

Step One: buy a 400mm f/5.6 or 100-400L

Don't make the same mistake I made.

Count one more vote for the Sigma 150-500 - it works beautifully on my 50D, so I wouldn't imagine you'd get worse results with a 7D.

My definition of "bird" is somewhat different, though - this was taken from about 800 metres away:

ScubaDude wrote in post #16172031
There are two ways to go about it.

Step One: buy a cheap 55-250. Use it for a month or two, get frustrated, sell it at a loss.
Step Two: buy a slightly better/longer lens. Use it for a month or two, get frustrated, sell it at a loss.
Step Three: buy a slightly better/longer lens. Use it for a month or two, get frustrated, sell it at a loss.
Step Four: buy a 400mm f/5.6 or 100-400L

or

Step One: buy a 400mm f/5.6 or 100-400L

Don't make the same mistake I made.

Good advice here. I bought a consumer telephoto zoom new and lost 50% on it in less than 6 months. I replaced it with a 100-400L. I have owned a few red-ring Ls that cost me nothing because I bought and sold used.

STEP ONE: Identify what, exactly, your current equipment is NOT doing for you.
STEP TWO: Identify which hardware will fill that need.
STEP THREE: Buy it, used if available. That way you lose nothing (or at least very little) if you made an error in step two.

I have purchased a truck-load of used equipment, mostly on e-bay and POTN. I have gotten burned exactly once. That was on an old film body that I paid $20 for. An internet search and a blow-dryer fixed it right up. I am a dedicated used/refurbished buyer.

I have a 7d with both a Sigma 150-500 and a Canon 400/5.6. I've rarely used the Sigma since getting the 400, and have met others with the same experience.

I think the best "budget" birding setup is a 7d with a 400/5.6. You'll probably get the 400 (or 100-400) eventually anyhow, so I'd suggest just getting it now.